I never introduced my self or my car, so I'm finally getting around to it.
I'm a college student in electrical engineering and have been there long enough to have graduated at least once already. Someday I might just get there.
Anyone who knows me knows that I got a thing for Volvos. I like all things mechanical, but Volvos are definitely number one. It's really all thanks to this car:
![]()
And that really is me. I still have that car.
This is just for fun too:
![]()
My parents bought it knew when the family needed a bigger car. I think we got super lucky. It's an '89 Turbo, dark red interior and an M46 manual transmission. I've never seen that combination, ever. Me and my two brothers learned to drive in it and it was our car in high school. Currently at over 240K it's still got the original clutch in it. It's mine now and is lightly modified: front and rear 1" sways, scrap metal 3" exhaust with only a magnaflow, year correct turbo plus kit and quad HID's to light up the night. I have a spare engine in the back from a 94 940 begging to be built, so I'm in search of a B234F head at some point.
Here are my two Volvos:
![]()
In the family we also have an '05 XC70 (since my mom's arthritis is bad enough to where it's tough to drive stick anymore). And I was given a '91 240 that became my brother's.
The fleet:
![]()
I have a freshly rebuilt turbo sitting on my desk (where I do all my homework to help brighten my day) destined for the 240. It's been a lot of fun bringing it up from a neglected car to something that uncle Olaf would drive. I found some Virgos for it and an M46 as well. Hella Rallye driving lights were an amazing mod for it. Driving lights are pretty awesome. It makes my quad HIDs look not so bright. Here's some winter glory:
![]()
So most of you probably want to hear about an R. I named it the Phoenix because I bought it like how I get a hold of most of my stuff, it was broke. I never saw it run. It was about two hour north of where I live, the price was very affordable, and I figured if it was a basket case I could part it and get back what I bought it for without much problem. Also, I was pretty depressed about a girl, so I needed something to do. I borrowed a jacked up Cummins from one friend, a beat up car trailer from another and found another friend to borrow a massive drop hitch to connect the two. When we collect and connected all three of those were ready to go. I pushed on a tire with my foot a little to see how much air was in it an noticed that the wheel bearings were way to lose on the trailer. We joked about it, scratched our heads, hopped in the truck and when to get the car. New Years Eve 2012, the previous owner was driving on the interstate when he suddenly lost power and was trailing a huge cloud of blue smoke. I knew that the turbo had failed, but that was it. We looked at it two months later on Feb 28th. It had been snowed in for two months and and frozen in inch-thick ice. The guy had been digging it out for the past few hours. I looked at it. It wasn't a show car. It had some dents in the door on the hips, but seemed to be okay. I handed over the cash for the car and the fun began! I think the car really hated everything because of it's previous owner. It fought us like it did not want to live anymore.
We dropped the trailer and jerked the car lose from the ice with the truck. We noticed the right rear wheel was more interested in sliding rather than rolling, but at least the other 3 were rolling. I pondered the whole wiseness of this venture and then came to my senses. The parking brake was off, there were no visible blockages, so we dragged it down the steep driveway into the street onto clean pavement. It still had no interest in turning. On a whim we pushed the car forward and it turned like it was never stuck. That was good enough for me. We got ready to load it on the trailer and set up the ramps. These ramps had a section at the top that was like a quarter of a pipe that would lay on the back end of the trailer (which was a pipe to lock it into place. The ramps themselves were big pieces of channel iron with a wide enough channel to roll a car wheel up... except 18" pegs are just a little too wide. Flipping them over wouldn't really work because the interlocking top end of the ramp would not interlock upside down. So we had another head scratching session and decided to drive the truck up into the steep driveway get the tail end as close the the pavement as possible. With 6" from the ground to the trailer to get we could now flip over the ramps with the angle just barely allowing them to want to stay in place. With the force of the car being pulled up, I hoped that it would encourage the ramps to stay in place. The trail had a 12,000lb winch just for this sort of thing, but I don't know why I ever expected it to work. Luckily I also burrowed a hand winch as a back up. So in a little over two hours we were all loaded up and ready to go. I joked about how I just broke every piece of advice I tell my friends when looking for a car. My friends reassured me this was a dumb idea and we went home.
Arrival:
![]()
Waiting on the title from the PO's bank took forever and had me a little worried, but as soon as I got it and I knew that I owned it, I went to work (actually, I spaced out the Volvo lettering on the back while I was waiting). So, you came the turbo. Very oily:
![]()
Automatic turbine clippage:
![]()
The problem:
![]()
So the shaft split, why? All the brass parts were brand new looking. Someone rebuilt the turbo and went all ape-arm on the axle nut. Then it gave out. Overall, my impression of the turbo was flimsy crap. But I have the old turbo out of my wagon, so I compared the size a bit. Really the K24 is barely bigger than the TD05 off the red block. After '89 Volvo switched to a smaller TD04H, and that one is noticeably smaller, ad probably more appropriate for 165HP from a 2.3L. Anyway, here's the K24 next to the TD05:
![]()
The TD05 has a really nice bypass valve compared to later TD04's and the K24.
So with all the fresh rebuild parts I figure I could get another used K24 and rebuild it. Unfortunately it had a different problem, also on the irreplaceable turbine. I should have realized that the turbine was very black when I pulled it apart. Also, someone had painted the whole thing grey. They even sprayed in the compressor. Weird. Lacquer thinner took care of that. I rebuilt it anyway and threw it in to see if the car would even run. It did. I discovered the biggest performance mod that the PO did to it quickly. He cut off the muffler. It's not there. It's just strait pipes that look like they were welded in my an 8 year old. My thoughts on it: it's super mean sounding. It grizzly, but not shrill like a *****. It's cool, but too loud. I plan on building a system for it like I did for my wagon. For now it's really cool to hear the turbine spool down over the exhaust. I also found out that the rust on the brakes was just too severe to rub off:
![]()
Back to the turbo: I ran it around for less than two weeks and pulled it out. It was leaking oil just like I thought it would. The turbine side piston ring are trapped by a ridge on either side. The inboard side ridge it gone. When I took the turbo apart, I actually found the rings inside the center housing oil chamber. I never opened it up, so I didn't blow them out, but it meant another trash turbine:
![]()
Comparing more damage:
![]()
Franken-turbo:
![]()
Also the exhaust housings on both K24's had several cracks, especially through the wastegate pivot.
![]()
I put the replacement turbo back together, called the people I bought it from, explained it's flaw and they took it back, no problem. I'd buy from them again. I really didn't want to get another K24, so I looked around and found a local diesel shop selling excess GT3071R's at wholesale! Perfect! I named it Rachel, after the sister of a girl I was trying to date (unsuccessfully) who just got married and had her last name changed to Garrett.
![]()
It's so pretttttyyyyyy! My preeeeeciooooouuuuuus!
Out came the shoehorn. I made an adapter plate out of 1/2" 304 stainless steel I bought off eBay. Threaded two holes for studs and drilled two for the studs in the manifold. The I put a fifth hole in the middle for exhaust gasses! Some info on that: Volvo uses a T3 bolt pattern, but a funny round hole that has a cross-sectional area a little smaller than a T3 standard inlet. My turbo had a T25 (T2) housing and the T2 inlet. It's more square and has a very close cross sectional area to the round outlet in the manifold. So I ported the plate for a smooth transition. I also turned the plate on a lathe to mate to the manifold outlet boss using a 3 jaw chuck, dull tools and a stack of pennies to center it. It actually turned out dead on. Here is the plate:
![]()
Now I found out that it does actually fit, I just have to take off the compressor housing to get it in position. Hairy business especially since if I drop it, I'll will probably ruin it. I actually made a foam cap to throw on the compressor, just in case.
![]()
I wanted hard oil lines, so I bought 3/8" stainless steel tubing from a brewery supplier and banjos to weld on:
![]()
My buddy TIG welded them for me:
{Broken Link}
I didn't want to change the charge pipe at all, so I modded the compressor housing. I found a Greddy BOV that looked like I could shove a tube on the end and turn it into a by pass valve. I also cut off the V-band outlet off the K24 turbo. Then I fit them to the new housing:
![]()
More welding:
![]()
The charge pipe actually lined up just fine. I of course took some time getting it set up right, but I was surprised how compatible it turned out. The Garrett is a little shorter than the K24, but it's fatter. Outlet ID is exactly the same. With the bypass valve in there, it made it tight. I had to modify the body a bit to clear a coolant pipe.
I reused the waste gate actuator. I cut off most the old mount holes, tapped for a new bracket and made one out of stainless plate. I made a new pivot connector for the waste gate arm. It's turned out pretty good actually. It maintains original functionality but shortens the control rod:
![]()
That banjo bolt is a 1mm restrictor.
The turbo has a 4" compressor inlet, so I got a 4" aluminum elbow and chopped it down to transition from the MAF to the inlet.
Here's a test fit:
![]()
I made a little aluminum pipe for the bypass circuit. It make a unique sounding whistle. I like it a lot. It all crams in there. I do need to add a blister for a sensor on the brake master cylinder, but it's not too important.
![]()
The fresh air pipe is should allow a little more airflow:
![]()
This is basically my kit. I welded a T2 flange onto the down pipe and the oil return line is the original line welded to a home-brew flange too.
![]()
I have VDO turbo gauge temporarily mounted here. Just started my a-pillar mount and I am working on a 3-D printed custom gauge face. I have a screwed up prototype in now, but the results look like it may work out alright. I may spring for the IPD gauge someday. This picture just shows the VDO face in the temporary mount:
![]()
I'll have to update more later. For now you get cheesy pictures of a dirty car:
+80HP
![]()
Thankfully I have more sense then that, but when a friend has one laying around, of course you need to see what it looks like.
![]()
Adventure mode.
I hope I didn't misspell the crap out of this.
I'm a college student in electrical engineering and have been there long enough to have graduated at least once already. Someday I might just get there.
Anyone who knows me knows that I got a thing for Volvos. I like all things mechanical, but Volvos are definitely number one. It's really all thanks to this car:
And that really is me. I still have that car.
This is just for fun too:
My parents bought it knew when the family needed a bigger car. I think we got super lucky. It's an '89 Turbo, dark red interior and an M46 manual transmission. I've never seen that combination, ever. Me and my two brothers learned to drive in it and it was our car in high school. Currently at over 240K it's still got the original clutch in it. It's mine now and is lightly modified: front and rear 1" sways, scrap metal 3" exhaust with only a magnaflow, year correct turbo plus kit and quad HID's to light up the night. I have a spare engine in the back from a 94 940 begging to be built, so I'm in search of a B234F head at some point.
Here are my two Volvos:
In the family we also have an '05 XC70 (since my mom's arthritis is bad enough to where it's tough to drive stick anymore). And I was given a '91 240 that became my brother's.
The fleet:
I have a freshly rebuilt turbo sitting on my desk (where I do all my homework to help brighten my day) destined for the 240. It's been a lot of fun bringing it up from a neglected car to something that uncle Olaf would drive. I found some Virgos for it and an M46 as well. Hella Rallye driving lights were an amazing mod for it. Driving lights are pretty awesome. It makes my quad HIDs look not so bright. Here's some winter glory:
So most of you probably want to hear about an R. I named it the Phoenix because I bought it like how I get a hold of most of my stuff, it was broke. I never saw it run. It was about two hour north of where I live, the price was very affordable, and I figured if it was a basket case I could part it and get back what I bought it for without much problem. Also, I was pretty depressed about a girl, so I needed something to do. I borrowed a jacked up Cummins from one friend, a beat up car trailer from another and found another friend to borrow a massive drop hitch to connect the two. When we collect and connected all three of those were ready to go. I pushed on a tire with my foot a little to see how much air was in it an noticed that the wheel bearings were way to lose on the trailer. We joked about it, scratched our heads, hopped in the truck and when to get the car. New Years Eve 2012, the previous owner was driving on the interstate when he suddenly lost power and was trailing a huge cloud of blue smoke. I knew that the turbo had failed, but that was it. We looked at it two months later on Feb 28th. It had been snowed in for two months and and frozen in inch-thick ice. The guy had been digging it out for the past few hours. I looked at it. It wasn't a show car. It had some dents in the door on the hips, but seemed to be okay. I handed over the cash for the car and the fun began! I think the car really hated everything because of it's previous owner. It fought us like it did not want to live anymore.
We dropped the trailer and jerked the car lose from the ice with the truck. We noticed the right rear wheel was more interested in sliding rather than rolling, but at least the other 3 were rolling. I pondered the whole wiseness of this venture and then came to my senses. The parking brake was off, there were no visible blockages, so we dragged it down the steep driveway into the street onto clean pavement. It still had no interest in turning. On a whim we pushed the car forward and it turned like it was never stuck. That was good enough for me. We got ready to load it on the trailer and set up the ramps. These ramps had a section at the top that was like a quarter of a pipe that would lay on the back end of the trailer (which was a pipe to lock it into place. The ramps themselves were big pieces of channel iron with a wide enough channel to roll a car wheel up... except 18" pegs are just a little too wide. Flipping them over wouldn't really work because the interlocking top end of the ramp would not interlock upside down. So we had another head scratching session and decided to drive the truck up into the steep driveway get the tail end as close the the pavement as possible. With 6" from the ground to the trailer to get we could now flip over the ramps with the angle just barely allowing them to want to stay in place. With the force of the car being pulled up, I hoped that it would encourage the ramps to stay in place. The trail had a 12,000lb winch just for this sort of thing, but I don't know why I ever expected it to work. Luckily I also burrowed a hand winch as a back up. So in a little over two hours we were all loaded up and ready to go. I joked about how I just broke every piece of advice I tell my friends when looking for a car. My friends reassured me this was a dumb idea and we went home.
Arrival:
Waiting on the title from the PO's bank took forever and had me a little worried, but as soon as I got it and I knew that I owned it, I went to work (actually, I spaced out the Volvo lettering on the back while I was waiting). So, you came the turbo. Very oily:
Automatic turbine clippage:
The problem:
So the shaft split, why? All the brass parts were brand new looking. Someone rebuilt the turbo and went all ape-arm on the axle nut. Then it gave out. Overall, my impression of the turbo was flimsy crap. But I have the old turbo out of my wagon, so I compared the size a bit. Really the K24 is barely bigger than the TD05 off the red block. After '89 Volvo switched to a smaller TD04H, and that one is noticeably smaller, ad probably more appropriate for 165HP from a 2.3L. Anyway, here's the K24 next to the TD05:
The TD05 has a really nice bypass valve compared to later TD04's and the K24.
So with all the fresh rebuild parts I figure I could get another used K24 and rebuild it. Unfortunately it had a different problem, also on the irreplaceable turbine. I should have realized that the turbine was very black when I pulled it apart. Also, someone had painted the whole thing grey. They even sprayed in the compressor. Weird. Lacquer thinner took care of that. I rebuilt it anyway and threw it in to see if the car would even run. It did. I discovered the biggest performance mod that the PO did to it quickly. He cut off the muffler. It's not there. It's just strait pipes that look like they were welded in my an 8 year old. My thoughts on it: it's super mean sounding. It grizzly, but not shrill like a *****. It's cool, but too loud. I plan on building a system for it like I did for my wagon. For now it's really cool to hear the turbine spool down over the exhaust. I also found out that the rust on the brakes was just too severe to rub off:
Back to the turbo: I ran it around for less than two weeks and pulled it out. It was leaking oil just like I thought it would. The turbine side piston ring are trapped by a ridge on either side. The inboard side ridge it gone. When I took the turbo apart, I actually found the rings inside the center housing oil chamber. I never opened it up, so I didn't blow them out, but it meant another trash turbine:
Comparing more damage:
Franken-turbo:
Also the exhaust housings on both K24's had several cracks, especially through the wastegate pivot.
I put the replacement turbo back together, called the people I bought it from, explained it's flaw and they took it back, no problem. I'd buy from them again. I really didn't want to get another K24, so I looked around and found a local diesel shop selling excess GT3071R's at wholesale! Perfect! I named it Rachel, after the sister of a girl I was trying to date (unsuccessfully) who just got married and had her last name changed to Garrett.
It's so pretttttyyyyyy! My preeeeeciooooouuuuuus!
Out came the shoehorn. I made an adapter plate out of 1/2" 304 stainless steel I bought off eBay. Threaded two holes for studs and drilled two for the studs in the manifold. The I put a fifth hole in the middle for exhaust gasses! Some info on that: Volvo uses a T3 bolt pattern, but a funny round hole that has a cross-sectional area a little smaller than a T3 standard inlet. My turbo had a T25 (T2) housing and the T2 inlet. It's more square and has a very close cross sectional area to the round outlet in the manifold. So I ported the plate for a smooth transition. I also turned the plate on a lathe to mate to the manifold outlet boss using a 3 jaw chuck, dull tools and a stack of pennies to center it. It actually turned out dead on. Here is the plate:
Now I found out that it does actually fit, I just have to take off the compressor housing to get it in position. Hairy business especially since if I drop it, I'll will probably ruin it. I actually made a foam cap to throw on the compressor, just in case.
I wanted hard oil lines, so I bought 3/8" stainless steel tubing from a brewery supplier and banjos to weld on:
My buddy TIG welded them for me:
{Broken Link}
I didn't want to change the charge pipe at all, so I modded the compressor housing. I found a Greddy BOV that looked like I could shove a tube on the end and turn it into a by pass valve. I also cut off the V-band outlet off the K24 turbo. Then I fit them to the new housing:
More welding:
The charge pipe actually lined up just fine. I of course took some time getting it set up right, but I was surprised how compatible it turned out. The Garrett is a little shorter than the K24, but it's fatter. Outlet ID is exactly the same. With the bypass valve in there, it made it tight. I had to modify the body a bit to clear a coolant pipe.
I reused the waste gate actuator. I cut off most the old mount holes, tapped for a new bracket and made one out of stainless plate. I made a new pivot connector for the waste gate arm. It's turned out pretty good actually. It maintains original functionality but shortens the control rod:
That banjo bolt is a 1mm restrictor.
The turbo has a 4" compressor inlet, so I got a 4" aluminum elbow and chopped it down to transition from the MAF to the inlet.
Here's a test fit:
I made a little aluminum pipe for the bypass circuit. It make a unique sounding whistle. I like it a lot. It all crams in there. I do need to add a blister for a sensor on the brake master cylinder, but it's not too important.
The fresh air pipe is should allow a little more airflow:
This is basically my kit. I welded a T2 flange onto the down pipe and the oil return line is the original line welded to a home-brew flange too.
I have VDO turbo gauge temporarily mounted here. Just started my a-pillar mount and I am working on a 3-D printed custom gauge face. I have a screwed up prototype in now, but the results look like it may work out alright. I may spring for the IPD gauge someday. This picture just shows the VDO face in the temporary mount:
I'll have to update more later. For now you get cheesy pictures of a dirty car:
+80HP
Thankfully I have more sense then that, but when a friend has one laying around, of course you need to see what it looks like.
Adventure mode.
I hope I didn't misspell the crap out of this.
